Is Your Company on the Road from Now to Nowhere?

Here are Five Ways to Get Moving and Get Back Your MOJO

1) Make a MAP (Mission Action Plan)

Define your Organization’s 10 – 10 & 10 List. 10 Things your organization wants to be, have and do by a specific end date. It may be a year time frame or in the case of an organization’s strategic plan, a 5 year destination. Always remember, if you “Think It, Ink It”. Nothing beats a framed list of your Top 10 that is posted visibly for everyone in the organization to see each day. Case in point: When the great visionary, Walt Disney was building Disney, he told the construction team to “Build the Castle First” noting the construction and business team needed to See the Castle. Have your Castle and your Organization’s Destination visible to all stakeholders every day. Often times, the biggest problem with business plans is they get tucked away out of view and often forgotten.

2) Develop (NA) Thinking (Next Action Thinking)

For each team goal, define “immediate next actions”. Writing down 1 to 3 critical and immediate next actions helps you leave the garage of goal setting and start building momentum toward organizational goals. Those “Next Actions” will eventually evolve into a project task list but start small with 1 to 3 achievable NA’s and watch your project take flight.

3) Is it All in Your Head? It should be!

Learn Creative Problem Solving & Strategic Planning Methodologies. There are many myths out there about Creativity, including that it’s either left or right brain. During our GPS Think Tank Training, we teach teams how to apply both creative and scientific models of problem solving and strategy to business and individual challenges. So if you or your organization appears to be on the Road to Nowhere, you may need a pivot point to “Develop Longer Lists and Better Choices.” That’s great advice from the Author of Think Better, Tim Hurson. Explore teaching Creative Problem Solving Tools and Techniques to your Team.

4) Assemble a Tribal Council

The Young Presidents Organization (YPO) represents the true success of the wisdom that “We indeed become the people we spend time with”. In YPO Forums, Top CEO’s work with each other in trusted forums of communication, where challenges are tackled with honesty, trust and application in a Pow-Wow/Council format. So who are the people you spend time with? Consider assembling own Personal Board of Directors who will challenge you, mentor you and provide a springboard for new ideas.

5) Check and Juggle the Cornerstones of Progress ( Strategy, Technology, People and Training Delivery)

If you or your organization have lost your Mojo, chances are one or more of these key cornerstones may be vulnerable. I am currently working on the single largest client technology platform in the history of financial services. While the technology is of course mission critical, the strategy, people and delivery of that platform to the field carries equal weight to the success of the project. To demonstrate the point the lead project manager masterfully juggled 4 pieces of fruit to an audience of 200, noting “you can have the best technology in the world” but without the people, the strategy and the training, you won’t be an act to follow.

Rosemary Rein, Ph.D is the Author of “Go Wild! Survival Skills for Business and Life” and a contributing author of “Blueprint for Success” with Dr. Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard. She speaks internationally on leadership, communications and creativity and works with companies in setting up their organizational think tanks and creative processes. Visit Rosemary for additional resources on establishing a year-round culture of creativity in your organization.